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A review by julianameiyan
Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan
3.0
i have such mixed feelings about this so we’re gonna go pros and cons.
pros: the beginning part of their relationship where they were absolutely obsessed with each other but sort of poorly veiling it was great and fun and the right amount of cheesy. i thought the anxiety stuff was handled well and it didn’t have too much of that melodramatic optimism (?) that a lot of books depicting mental health have. it didn’t linger too much in it it said what it needed to about it and moved on. the family issues seemed like a good representation and even if it wasn’t like fantastically accurate i thought it was a conflict i don’t see explored too often in young adult romance books oddly enough so i think the fact it exists earns it some points. ace and karinas dialogue was pretty enjoyable and i did like both of their characters their motivations and everything were very clear. overall it was a sweet read/listen and i did very much enjoy these parts of it.
cons: i absolutely could not stand the narrator of this book. i think it was a combination of the egregious teen speak and the narrator but she was just far too positive for some of the lines. her voice makes enough sense for karinas thoughts but when it’s ace speaking it just does not fit at all. and cora’s voice was so irritating. it was just the most valley girl sounding stereotypical teenage girl voice and i hated it so much. aside from the voice acting the teen speak was awful and unrealistic i never wanna hear someone reading out “o-m-g” again. the poems were really cheesy and bad. for someone that likes english so much you think she could write some poems that don’t sound like rupi kaur’s. like please you love shakespeare and this is what you make. sometimes their relationship got disgustingly cheesy and i just couldn’t take it. like i have an extremely high tolerance for romance book cheese and even this made me roll my eyes. the whole lionheart and spark and inferno thing i just could not deal with it. i thought ace as a stereotypical bad boy with a soft spot for karina just didn’t make sense at the beginning. he has no reason to have developed a soft spot for her immediately especially when he’s supposedly such a prickly person.
in conclusion i think my problems with this books are mainly because i’m too cynical for this level of sweetness which for the most part is just a me thing and objectively this is still a solid book that i will not be rating very highly.
pros: the beginning part of their relationship where they were absolutely obsessed with each other but sort of poorly veiling it was great and fun and the right amount of cheesy. i thought the anxiety stuff was handled well and it didn’t have too much of that melodramatic optimism (?) that a lot of books depicting mental health have. it didn’t linger too much in it it said what it needed to about it and moved on. the family issues seemed like a good representation and even if it wasn’t like fantastically accurate i thought it was a conflict i don’t see explored too often in young adult romance books oddly enough so i think the fact it exists earns it some points. ace and karinas dialogue was pretty enjoyable and i did like both of their characters their motivations and everything were very clear. overall it was a sweet read/listen and i did very much enjoy these parts of it.
cons: i absolutely could not stand the narrator of this book. i think it was a combination of the egregious teen speak and the narrator but she was just far too positive for some of the lines. her voice makes enough sense for karinas thoughts but when it’s ace speaking it just does not fit at all. and cora’s voice was so irritating. it was just the most valley girl sounding stereotypical teenage girl voice and i hated it so much. aside from the voice acting the teen speak was awful and unrealistic i never wanna hear someone reading out “o-m-g” again. the poems were really cheesy and bad. for someone that likes english so much you think she could write some poems that don’t sound like rupi kaur’s. like please you love shakespeare and this is what you make. sometimes their relationship got disgustingly cheesy and i just couldn’t take it. like i have an extremely high tolerance for romance book cheese and even this made me roll my eyes. the whole lionheart and spark and inferno thing i just could not deal with it. i thought ace as a stereotypical bad boy with a soft spot for karina just didn’t make sense at the beginning. he has no reason to have developed a soft spot for her immediately especially when he’s supposedly such a prickly person.
in conclusion i think my problems with this books are mainly because i’m too cynical for this level of sweetness which for the most part is just a me thing and objectively this is still a solid book that i will not be rating very highly.